Santa Puppy by Lynn CahoonSanta Puppy by Lynn Cahoon
Series: A Tourist Trap Mystery #9.75
Published by Lyrical Press on November 6, 2018
Source: NetGalley
Genres: Mystery, Novella, Christmas
Pages: 75
Format: eARC
Purchase at Bookshop.org or Purchase at Amazon
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three-stars

’Twas the season of Christmas, and all through South Cove, California, Santa is working overtime to deliver a special gift . . .

Jill Gardner has volunteered her Coffee, Books, and More to host a Christmas adopt-a-pet party. Among the potential forever friends is a male terrier named Baby, whose owner died of a heart attack. With few clues to go on, even finding the name of Baby’s human is a daunting task. But there’s no challenge too big for Jill this holiday season.

Playing Santa’s Little Helper, Jill is determined to find out what happened —and to fulfill a long-time coming Christmas wish . . .

Christmas and puppies and a mystery – how could I pass up Santa Puppy? I haven’t read any of the others in the series, but I thought this worked fine as a cute standalone. Jill Gardner owns a bookshop (also an awesome thing) and has volunteered to host a Christmas party with the goal of getting pets adopted from the local shelter. One of the dogs, Baby, touches Jill’s heart. Its owner, a homeless man, was found dead of a heart attack on the beach and Baby needs a new home. Jill, with the help and approval of her detective boyfriend, does some sleuthing to find out who the man was and if he had family who might take the dog.

It was nice that Jill’s boyfriend helped her and approved of her digging. Of course, there wasn’t any danger involved, it was a natural death, the mystery was more about who the man was and how he ended up homeless. It was a good story, but a little sad too. The puppy gets a happy ending though, so no fears on its behalf.

There was a hint of the paranormal, but with Santa Claus around that’s not unusual. Overall, it was a fun addition to my Christmas reading this year. I don’t know that I enjoyed it enough to read the rest of the series, though.

About Lynn Cahoon

Lynn Cahoon

Lynn Cahoon is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Tourist Trap mystery series. She’s also the author of the Cat Latimer mystery series and the Farm-to-Fork mystery series.

She’s a member of MORWA (the St. Louis area RWA chapter), SINC, MWA, and International Thriller Writers.

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